Smart Places and RASIC

Smart places have been a point of focus for a number of years, with the rise in IoT technologies and availability of connectivity, there’s a lot of buzz around the art of the possible. 

With the growing interest, this topic is becoming increasingly studied, with reports such as the one by Smart Cities World detailing the features of a smart place.

Smart places are made up of intersections, systems of systems that work together to holistically solve problems. To make these places possible and purposeful we must integrate IoT, data and connectivity. For data to interoperate and become more than the sum of its parts, sharing is critical to unlocking the value needed to deliver services to the levels expected by citizens and address needs of systemic issues such as public transport infrastructure.

Many different industries, businesses and people contribute to smart places, however, the end goal isn’t necessarily defined. That’s why cooperation in an open world approach is key. Contributors know and own some things and by sharing their data and making it findable for other contributors, allowing them to fill in the gaps around their challenges. 

Railway stations as smart places

Information systems like RDIS for the rail sector have the potential to evolve and become flexible and using IOTICS technology. 

“RDIS harnesses the best work of smaller companies, each with their own specialism – the solution is greater than the sum of its parts. Key to this is the ability to on-board new suppliers of data.”

– Peter Hicks, Director at Open Train Times

By turning a closed system into a cooperative ecosystem, data feeds can become more than the sum of their parts and provide meaningful insights to customers which in turn allows services to become better.

Having an ecosystem that can evolve is crucial as the purpose of places and objectives of operators changes. New partners and data feeds can join the ecosystem and expand the possibilities as new ideas and needs emerge. 

Building a flexible ecosystem is exactly what RASIC decided to do with its RDIS. Having already built a prototype for measuring passenger demand, they recognised other needs from their customers such as identifying what else people are using stations for which can help give a more accurate prediction of how busy a station is likely to be.

Smart places help make services better. Having several different data feeds in the Building a flexible ecosystem is exactly what RASIC decided to do with its RDIS. Having already built a prototype for measuring passenger demand, they recognised other needs from their customers helps transport operators to solve problems holistically rather than relying on point solutions for individual issues. The value is in the interaction. When several data feeds interact it creates more accurate insights and predictions as well as highlight problems that were previously unknown. 

Your journey of building ecosystems and gaining real value from data interactions starts today. Grow value by utilising the potential of your existing information systems. Contact a member of our team today and discover how you can get more from your data.